“I love things that are cool and kind,” she said. I love things that are cool and strong. I love iron.” She moved her arm caressingly upon the railing. “I love its cool, smooth touch. Any strong life must have iron in it. I like iron in men.”
She leaned a very little closer to him.
“Have you iron in you, Mr. Corliss?” she asked.
At these words the frayed edge of Hedrick’s broad white collar was lifted perceptibly from his coat, as if by a shudder passing over the back and shoulders beneath.
“If I have not,” answered Corliss in a low voice, I will have—now!”
“Tell me about yourself,” she said.
“Dear lady,” he began—and it was an effective beginning, for a sigh of pleasure parted her lips as he spoke —“there is nothing interesting to tell. I have spent a very commonplace life.”
“I think not. You shouldn’t call any life commonplace that has escaped THIS!” The lovely voice was all the richer for the pain that shook it now. “This monotony, this unending desert of ashes, this death in life!”
“This town, you mean?”
“This prison, I mean! Everything. Tell me what lies outside of it. You can.”
“What makes you think I can?”
“I don’t need to answer that. You understand perfectly.”
Valentine Corliss drew in his breath with a sound murmurous of delight, and for a time they did not speak.
“Yes,” he said, finally, “I think I do.”
“There are meetings in the desert,” he went on, slowly. “A lonely traveller finds another at a spring, sometimes.”
“And sometimes they find that they speak the same language?”
His answer came, almost in a whisper:
“`Even as you and I.’”
“`Even as you and I,’” she echoed, even more faintly.
“Yes.”
Cora breathed rapidly in the silence that followed; she had every appearance of a woman deeply and mysteriously stirred. Her companion watched her keenly in the dusk, and whatever the reciprocal symptoms of emotion he may have exhibited, they were far from tumultuous, bearing more likeness to the quiet satisfaction of a good card-player taking what may prove to be a decisive trick.
After a time she leaned back in her chair again, and began to fan herself slowly.
“You have lived in the Orient, haven’t you, Mr. Corliss?” she said in an ordinary tone.
“Not lived. I’ve been East once or twice. I spend a greater part of the year at Posilipo.”
“Where is that?”
“On the fringe of Naples.”
“Do you live in a hotel?”
“No.” A slight surprise sounded in his voice. “I have a villa there.”
“Do you know what that seems to me?” Cora asked gravely, after a pause; then answered herself, after another: “Like magic. Like a strange, beautiful dream.”
“Yes, it is beautiful,” he said.
“Then tell me: What do you do there?”
“I spend a lot of time on the water in a boat.”
“Sailing?”
“On sapphires and emeralds and turquoises and rubies, melted and blown into waves.”
“And you go yachting over that glory?”
“Fishing with my crew—and loafing.”
“But your boat is really a yacht, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it might be called anything,” he laughed.
“And your sailors are Italian fishermen?”
Hedrick slew a mosquito upon his temple, smiting himself hard. “No, they’re Chinese!” he muttered hoarsely.
“They’re Neapolitans,” said Corliss.
“Do they wear red sashes and earrings?” asked Cora.
“One of them wears earrings and a derby hat!”
“Ah!” she protested, turning to him again. “You don’t tell me. You let me cross-question you, but you don’t tell
